1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to the preservation of still beverages and foodstuffs. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a stopper for sealing the mouth of a wine bottle or other rigid container and allowing removal of air from the vessel to maintain a vacuum inside it.
2. Related Art
It is well known that wine spoils quickly when oxidized through exposure to air. In short, wine+air=vinegar. On the producer/supplier side, much time and money is spent in the quest for the ideal closure, one that seals and protects bottled wine from spoilage, while still allowing wine to benefit from bottle aging. Closures range from traditional cork, to synthetic materials, to screw caps. But on the retail/consumer side, the options for preserving wine, once opened, are few. If a bottle is not finished, it can be adequately maintained at room temperature for several hours—and usually no more than a day or two at most—before developing noticeable off flavors. Refrigeration may in some instances extend the useful life of an opened bottle, but again by no more than several days. The downside to refrigeration is that, when served below their optimal temperature, over-chilled wines often taste dead and lifeless.
One known method for the preservation of wine in a bottle is to evacuate the air space above the liquid once some of the wine has been consumed and then seal the bottle with a stopper. One system for accomplishing this is the Vacu Vin™ wine saver system. The Vacu Vin system requires a special stopper to be placed in the bottle neck. This stopper has a slit that acts as a non-return valve. The valve opens if a vacuum is created above the stopper to allow air to be sucked out of the bottle but closes again as soon as the external pressure is greater than the pressure inside the bottle. To create a vacuum above the stopper, a manual suction pump is used. This operates satisfactorily, but pump operation is time-consuming and strenuous if an adequate level of vacuum is to be produced in the bottle. It has been observed that the maximum vacuum that can be achieved using the Vacu Vin pump is approximately 18 in-Hg. In actual practice, most users achieve a vacuum of approximately 12 in-Hg using this hand pump. There is also no convenient or accurate method of determining when a suitable vacuum level has been achieved.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,033 describes another known method of preserving wine in an opened wine bottle by inflating a bladder inside the bottle to fill the space above the liquid and to prevent oxygen from reaching the wine. To do this is a time-consuming operation, which requires considerable manual dexterity in introducing a deflated bladder into the bottle and then inflating it. This method also requires that the bladder be removed, washed, and cleaned after each use.
Another option for preserving an opened bottle of wine involves pouring the contents of the opened bottled into a smaller bottle, decanter or the like having less airspace above the wine, inserting an airtight stopper and then storing. Finally, the air in an opened bottle may be replaced with a layer of inert gas, such as nitrogen, and stored. In one such system as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,475,576, a stopper is inserted into a bottle to replace the cork and remain with the bottle for the lifetime of the wine. The stopper is provided with passageways and valves to permit the bottle to be pressed against a contact-operated dispenser head, directing a blast of inert gas such as Argon into the bottle to expel at first air, and subsequently a mixture of air and Argon or other inert gas, until the percentage of oxygen is so low as not to represent a threat to the wine.
On the commercial consumption side, however, none of these solutions are adequate. For instance, in restaurants, wine bars and the like where wine is served by the glass, the problem of wine preservation is greatly magnified by the sheer number of bottles. Spoilage accounts for waste and lost profits when opened bottles of wine are not consumed before their useful shelf life. This often limits the selection of wines offered by the glass to those that are either (a) relatively inexpensive or (b) so popular that they are virtually guaranteed to be consumed shortly after opening (e.g. chardonnay, merlot, etc.). There is little incentive for expensive wines, older vintages, or lesser-known varietals to be offered where the chance of unfinished bottles and spoilage is great. It is impractical, particularly in a busy restaurant or bar, for servers to use any of the previously mentioned methods to preserve opened bottles of wine. Evacuating air from a bottle using a hand pump such as the Vacu Vin is time-consuming and inconsistent. A bartender is unlikely to take the time required to properly vacuum seal a bottle of wine by hand when there are customers waiting to be served. Also, if the pumping and sealing is delayed, the damage to the wine from exposure to air is already done.
Decanting and storing opened wine in smaller vessels is even more unrealistic in the commercial setting. Also, while inert gas systems find use in some retail serving establishments, such systems can be quite expensive due not in the least part to the continued consumption of the inert gas. Inert gas systems are also impractical due to their bulk and the space required to install and maintain such a system, in which each bottle of wine requires its own stopper and tap for dispensing the stored wine.
Mechanical pump systems located at the bar are expensive, slow, and noisy. One mechanical system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,215,129 and has been commercialized as “Le Verre de Vin” (the glass of wine) system. The system comprises a self-contained wall-mounted unit, which receives a wine bottle. Pressing the wine bottle into a housing and closing electrical contacts housed therein starts a pump. Once the contacts are closed, the pump begins to draw air in the bottle through a stopper having a one-way valve.
While the Verre de Vin system can be used to evacuate air from a bottle of wine, it has some inherent operational—as well as commercial—drawbacks. Initially, because the system is designed without a vacuum tank, the pump must cycle on and off with each depression of the housing. This creates at least three interrelated problems. Initially, the pump is noisy and can be annoying to patrons of the establishment in which such a device is installed. Secondly, the pump can only be started and stopped a predetermined number of times over a set period. Any more frequent actuation can result in the failure of the motor. According to its specifications, the Verre de Vin system can evacuate no more than fifteen bottles over a five-minute period. In a busy bar setting, this number can easily be surpassed, resulting in partially consumed bottles being left un-evacuated. Third, because there is no storage tank to maintain a vacuum in the system, there is a delay between the actuation of the pump and the drawing of a vacuum on the bottle. This is a result of the pump having to also evacuate air from the line between the pump and the bottle. It has been observed that in order to achieve a vacuum of 22 in-Hg in a half-empty, standard 750 mL wine bottle using the Verre de Vin system requires twelve seconds. In a busy setting in which customers are waiting to be served, a bartender is unlikely to take this time to evacuate a bottle of wine between each pour, leading to partially consumed bottles of wine being left exposed to air. Finally, due to the size and single-user nature of the Verre de Vin system, the owner of a bar or other establishment is forced to sacrifice precious bar space for mounting or housing the device in a central location accessible throughout the service area. These and other problems make the Verre de Vin system a less than ideal solution.
One commercially available system has recently been introduced to overcome a number of these problems. The Vinfinity® Wine-By-The-Glass System utilizes a vacuum storage tank both to reduce the time needed to fully evacuate the bottle and to increase the vacuum level ultimately attained in the bottle. The Vinfinity® Wine-By-The-Glass System can attain vacuum levels as high as 30 in-Hg, with a preferred operating range of 23-25 in-Hg providing better protection for the resealed wine. The system can reach these vacuum levels in a wine bottle that is one-quarter full in two seconds or less, significantly increasing the likelihood of use in busy serving environments. Further details of the Vinfinity® Wine-By-The-Glass System can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,886,605, 7,048,016, and 7,108,023, the disclosures of which are fully incorporated by reference herein.
The Vinfinity® Wine-By-The-Glass System has applications beyond that of wine preservation. Many foodstuffs, both in isolation or in preparations, can also benefit from the elimination of oxygen from the storage container, decreasing the spoliation of the foodstuffs and allowing the foodstuffs to retain their freshness over longer periods. Institutional use of such a system increases the institution's ability to purchase and open large containers without the pressure to immediately use or waste a portion of the contents.
Despite the many advantages offered by the Vinfinity® Wine-By-The-Glass System, it and all other currently available mechanical pump systems are still limited by the speed with which air can be evacuated from the vessel through the stopper. The amount of time required to evacuate air from a container is directly proportional to the amount of air initially present in it and inversely proportional to the smallest size aperature in the path between the container and the vacuum pump. This behavior can be likened to the flow of gas through a pipeline, where the minimum aperture size along the length of the pipeline defines the rate at which gas is able to flow from one end of the pipeline to the other end.
Currently available stopper designs severely limit the rate of airflow due to the small sizes of their valve openings. Perhaps the most widely recognized example among wine enthusiasts is the stopper design described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,763,803, 4,911,314, and 4,998,633. This stopper design is widely used in hand vacuum preservation systems such as the Vacu Vin and also is used in the Verre de Vin and Vinfinity® Wine-By-The-Glass Systems described above. The stopper employs what is known as a slit valve (FIG. 1A), in which elastic material is formed with a slit extending from the top of the outside of the stopper to the inside of the portion of the stopper extending into the bottle. Applying a vacuum to the top edge of the slit causes the two pieces of elastic material to separate enough to allow the flow of air from the bottle. When a user wishes to release the vacuum from the bottle, the ends of the slit can be squeezed toward each other, deforming the elastic material and allowing air to enter the bottle through the resulting gap in the top of the stopper, thereby equalizing the pressure between the inside and outside of the container. This design has the benefit of being formed from a single piece of elastic material, reducing manufacturing complexity and the opportunity for manufacturing defects. The rate of air flow through such a stopper is low, however, due to the small size of the aperture in the slit valve.
Another popular stopper design used in the Vacu Vin and Vinfinity® Wine-By-The-Glass Systems described above is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,976,669. This stopper utilizes a rigid valve seat into which an elastic valve body fits, sealing the container. The top of the stopper (FIG. 1B) contains small through holes that allow the passage of air in either direction between the outside of the stopper and the inner area surrounding the valve seat. The elastic valve body can be deformed by the application of a vacuum, allowing air to escape through the channel composed of the gap created between the valve seat and valve body and the holes in the top of the stopper. When a user wishes to release the vacuum from the bottle, the valve body can be deformed by hand, allowing air to enter the bottle through the channel composed of the holes in the top of the stopper and the resulting gap between the valve seat and valve body. But this stopper design also significantly limits the rate of air flow through the valve, due both to the limited size of the gap that can be created between the valve seat and valve body and to the small size of the holes in the top of the stopper.
Other similar stopper designs exist, all of which share the disadvantage of a small aperture through the stopper body and a resultant low volume of airflow through the stopper. A more effective stopper design will have an aperture size that approaches the inner diameter of the mouth of the bottle or other container to allow air to be evacuated as rapidly as possible.
The rate of flow problem is compounded as the size of the container increases. Clearly, the time required to adequately depressurize a half-consumed 750 mL bottle is much less than that of a large format bottle (e.g. a magnum, Jeroboam, Methusaleh, Nebuchadnezzar, etc.) as well as a five gallon food service container or the like common throughout the restaurant industry. Such containers are commonly used to store all manner of foodstuffs, including sauces, condiments, soups, dressings, etc. Although the Vinfinity® Wine-By-The-Glass System has the ability to adequately and rapidly apply a vacuum to such a sealed container, today's commercially available stoppers are the limiting factor.
An additional shortcoming of existing commercially available stopper designs is that they do not allow the user to quickly and accurately determine whether (a) the user, likely working in a fast-paced service environment, has resealed and vacuumed a container; (b) the sealed container has a vacuum level sufficient to preserve its contents, or (c) the vacuum level has diminished over time due to a dirty or faulty stopper or a leak, thereby putting the integrity of its contents at risk. An ideal stopper will clearly and boldly indicate that the internal vacuum level in the container is above or below a minimum threshold necessary to preserve the wine or other contents.
Currently available stoppers do not adequately solve these problems. One example is the stopper accompanying the Trudeau Elite Wine Preserving Pump. This stopper has a small button indicator mounted on a flexible diaphragm at the top of the stopper. The side of the button indicator is colored to contrast with the rest of the stopper. When no vacuum is present in the bottle, the resting position of the diaphragm leaves the side of the button indicator visible to the user, the contrasting color thereby indicating a lack of vacuum in the bottle. The presence of a vacuum in the bottle flexes the diaphragm, lowering the button indicator into the body of the stopper and reducing the visibility of the contrasting color. Three problems exist with this design. First, the button indicator is very small, and the range of motion between the sealed and unsealed states is very limited, thus causing difficulties in determining the state of the button indicator from any distance. Second, the side of the button indicator does not completely disappear from view when the stopper is in its sealed state, thus requiring the user to carefully inspect the stopper to ensure the bottle is properly sealed. In a busy service environment, servers are unlikely to take the time for this level of careful inspection, thus reducing the effectiveness of the preservation system. Third, the amount of vacuum required to lower the button indicator into the body of the stopper is very low—nowhere near the ideal 23-25 in-Hg vacuum achieved by the Vinfinity® Wine-By-The-Glass System—which may result in users having a false sense of security that the container is properly sealed when, in fact, the bottle contains insufficient vacuum to retard the degradation of its contents.
Two existing vacuum storage systems use alternative methods to indicate the presence of a vacuum. The first method, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,745, incorporates a visual vacuum feedback into the actual storage container. The top portion of the container is mounted on a vertical slide mechanism that is biased in the upward direction, exposing an inner surface that is a different color than the outer surface. When a vacuum is created in the container, the vacuum force overcomes the bias and pulls the top portion of the container down to its lower limit of travel, hiding the inner surface. In this manner, the user has a clear visual indication when the vacuum level in the container has diminished. This method has limited applications due to the fact that it requires both a specialized container and stopper, increasing the complexity and cost of the system and decreasing its desirability for applications such as wine and institutional food service.
The second alternative method, described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0200863 A1, incorporates audible feedback means into a hand-operated vacuum pump. When the vacuum pump generates a sufficiently high vacuum during a stroke, a physical object in the pump will audibly indicate that the desired vacuum level has been reached. One embodiment describes a plate-like part that creates a clicking sound when inverted by the vacuum force. Two problems exist with this design. First, putting the vacuum indication in the pump rather than the stopper creates a single point of failure in the system and increases the replacement costs in the event that the vacuum indicator mechanism fails. Second, after the pump is removed from the stopper, subsequent users have no way to tell whether a given container still holds a sufficient vacuum. To determine this, they would have to fit the pump to every single container and actuate the pump to receive the audible feedback. This would be time-consuming and likely would not be done in busy environments, allowing spoilage of contents of containers either not sealed or inadequately sealed.
Another important factor in the food and wine service industry is the ability to quickly determine the amount of time that has elapsed since a bottle, container, or the like was initially opened. Despite the best efforts of the vacuum system, some small amount of oxygen may remain in the bottle after it is resealed. This oxygen may create a noticeable “off” taste in the wine several weeks after opening, depending on the vacuum level, the quality of the seal, the number of times the wine has been opened, and the characteristics of the wine itself. Foodstuffs may degrade and spoil even quicker in the presence of residual air. If a server, chef, cook, etc. can tell, at a glance, that the container was opened before a certain date, he can preemptively discard the potentially spoiled contents rather than serving them to a customer.
Existing options for recording a container's initial opening date do not meet the needs of a busy service environment. Hand labeling is cumbersome and requires a server to have a pen on hand at all times. The format of hand labels is dissatisfying as well. Adhesive labels can be messy and are not aesthetically pleasing. Rigid paper labels that are hung on the neck of the bottle or applied to other containers are commercially available, but these also compromise aesthetics and can fall off easily. Labeling machines can be used, but these require both a costly initial purchase and ongoing consumables and maintenance.
Accordingly, there is a need for a stopper having a design that allows rapid evacuation of air from a wine bottle or other container. There is a further need for a stopper that contains an integral indicator mechanism for setting and subsequently identifying the date the container was initially opened. Finally, there is a need for a stopper having an internal vacuum indicator for visually indicating whether the container is under vacuum. Such a stopper will enable restaurants and bars to open a greater variety of wines for their “by the glass” consumers without fear of unduly impeding the workflow of the servers or inadvertently serving spoiled wine to a customer.
It is therefore an object of the disclosures to provide a stopper that allows the rapid evacuation of air from a wine bottle or other container to support the timing constraints of users in busy commercial environments.
It is a further object of the disclosures to provide a stopper that creates and maintains a consistent and reliable seal that is resistant to degradation caused by the buildup of particulate matter on the sealing mechanism.
It is a further object of the disclosures to provide a stopper that indicates the status of the vacuum within the container to allow users to identify, at a glance, containers with an internal vacuum level below a level sufficient to retard the degradation of the contents.
It is a further object of the disclosures to provide a stopper that allows users to rapidly and easily set and subsequently identify the date on which the container was initially opened or stored, both to promote dispensing of earlier-opened containers and to promote disposal of spoiled contents before they are served to a customer.
Other objects, features, and advantages of the disclosures will become apparent from the drawings and following description.